Richard's Bookstore

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This book is a career-capping anthology of essays that inspire, enlighten, and tickle the funny bone.

Richard Lederer is Learning and Language Dressed Up to Have Fun, and Lederer’s Language & Laughter is his funniest book ever.

Illuminating stories about the histories and mysteries of everyday words and phrases.

A treasure chest of amazing facts, curiosities, and quizzes about your favorite authors and their works.

A sublime adventure in recreational linguistics that brings order to our English language.

In this wide-ranging collection, Richard Lederer offers his reflections on the English language, along with his tales of a life in letters.

The Big Book of Word Play Crosswords is a rousing collection of 100 original puzzles put together by best-selling language author Richard Lederer and award-winning crossword constructor Gayle Dean.

After a half century of sparking readers to appreciate the glories of the English language and laugh at its oddities, beloved language maven Richard Lederer serves up a veritable banquet of words. This book is a career-capping anthology of essays that inspire, enlighten, and tickle the funny bone.

From his hymns of praise to English to his rib-tickling bloopers and puns, these verbal performances are among the brightest gems of a storied career — certain to delight language lovers and Lederer fans everywhere.

Brett Radlicki’s gallery of illustrations adds to the luminous joy and rollicking fun of A Feast of Words. This is the perfect book for family, friends, and yourself — everyone smitten by the magic of language.

Known as “Attila the Pun” and “The First Name in Popular Linguistics,” Richard Lederer is Learning and Language Dressed Up to Have Fun, and Lederer’s Language & Laughter is his funniest book ever. In its pages, he takes you on a joyride through our glorious, uproarious, notorious, victorious English language.

Chock full of jokes, wordplay, bloopers, puns, crazy English, funny names, grammar stammers, and hilarious holiday humor, this book will brighten your days and make you laugh again and again. A belly-shaking guffaw stimulates circulation, tones the muscles, energizes the lungs, excites endorphins, adds T cells to the immune system, reduces pain, inflammation, and muscle tension, and provides superb aerobic exercise. They who laugh, last.

-Paperback Edition-

(Note: for Hardback Edition, please contact Richard)

To the man or woman who knows its origin, each word presents a picture, no matter how ordinary it may appear. Best-selling language author Richard Lederer passionately and humorously presents illuminating stories about the histories and mysteries of everyday words and phrases. In this hardcover book, Dr. Lederer illuminates the history and mystery of everyday words and expressions, organizing these etymologies into 13 thematic clusters, including body parts; wild kingdom; entertainment; land, sea, air, and beyond; politics; sports; science; and religion.

 

A treasure chest of amazing facts, curiosities, and quizzes about your favorite authors and their works. Looking back to the Bible, classical mythology, and William Shakespeare and moving up to a library of contemporary writers, Richard Lederer’s Ultimate Book of Literary Trivia promises bright days of entertainment and enlightenment for the passionate book lover.

What fictional detective survived an attempted murder by his creator?
Whose gravestone bears the inscription “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated”?
Who was the single mother, living on state benefits, whose series of fantastic novels made her the richest writer in England?

Dr. Lederer has written more than 60 books about language, history, and humor.

Challenging Words is a sublime adventure in recreational linguistics that brings order to our English language. Be prepared for a wordy workout consisting of aerobics of the mind and push-ups of the brain.

This is not a book for everyone. But if you are heels-over-head nuts about language and have a passion for snatching significance from the mass data swirling around us, you will share in its pages some sublime adventures in re-creation-al linguistics.

In the process of rising to the various challenges in these pages, your axons, dendrites, ganglia, and synapses will get quite a workout as you engage in a series of push-ups of the mind and aerobics of the brain.

Throughout his word-happy, wordstruck, wordaholic career, Dr. Richard Lederer has epitomized “learning dressed up to have fun.” His mission is to impose order on chaos and sprinkle fairy dust on the mundane. Enter this great banquet hall of words, and you will savor the abundant harvest of our bountiful, multifoliate English language.

Just about everybody has a name. In The Joy of Names, his master guide to names, best-selling language author Richard Lederer illuminates all you need to know about first names, baby names, last names, nicknames, cruel and unusual names, movie stars’ names, presidents’ names, eponymous names, names from myths, authors’ pseudonyms, and other fascinating facts about names.

Richard Lederer, known as “Learning Dressed Up to Have Fun,” makes these topics delightfully accessible. The illustrations by Todd Smith help bring the information to vibrant life.

In this wide-ranging collection, Richard Lederer offers his reflections on the English language, along with his tales of a life in letters. The more than 30 chapters include Dr. Lederer’s best columns from the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Best-selling language writer Richard Lederer offers readers more of the irrepressible word play his fans can’t get enough of, along with his observations on a life in letters. From teaching English to Russian fifth graders to a zany dinner for punsters and from etymology to slang to dialect to fadspeak, these essays are learning and language dressed up to have fun, as only Dr. Lederer does it. He is the author of more than 60 books about language, history, and humor.

 

Conceived by Richard Lederer and built by award-winning constructor Gayle Dean, each of the 100 puzzles in The Big Book of Word Play Crosswords is a rousing collection of 100 original puzzle.100 crossword puzzles in this book combines the classical elegance of American crosswords with the cleverness of British versions.

Sparked by amusing, witty, and challenging themes, these brain teasers feature jokes, puns, bloopers, rhymes, anagrams, and palindromes. Each of the 100 crossword puzzles includes an introduction by verbivore Richard Lederer, author of more than 60 books about language, history, and humor.